The Center for American and International Law is an international nonprofit educational institution dedicated to improving the quality of justice through continuing education to lawyers and law enforcement officials in the United States and throughout the world.

Tens of thousands of lawyers and law enforcement officers from all 50 states and 130 countries have participated in programs of The Center. Founded in 1947, The Center has earned a reputation for excellence in education.

Much of The Center’s work is accomplished through its seven educational institutes. Ultimately, our success is dependent upon the leadership and support of our members. We invite you and your organization to join us.

A Unique Organization
Professional education lasts a lifetime. This principle seems self-evident today. That was not the case, however, in 1947 when Robert Storey, Dean of the Southern Methodist University School of Law, launched The Center for American and International Law, then known as The Southwestern Legal Foundation. The notion of continuing formal education beyond law school was a relatively new idea. When Dean Storey created an organization whose primary purpose was continuing legal education, it was among the first in the country.

Eleven years later, the Institute for Law Enforcement Administration (ILEA), then known as the Southwestern Law Enforcement Institute, was established. ILEA offers courses to police chiefs and to first line law enforcement managers. Perhaps its proudest moment came in 1992 with the establishment of the Center for Law Enforcement Ethics. Through the ripple effect of its Train-the-Trainer program, which advises law enforcement trainers how to incorporate ethics education in their own departments, the Ethics Center has already reached more than 10,000 sworn officers in the United States.

To this day, we know of no other continuing education center engaged in both lawyer and law enforcement education.

Serving Lawyers
The law is not a science. To some, it is an art, and it is changeable. What a lawyer learns today may not be the law of tomorrow. Relationships among nations, businesses, and people are becoming increasingly complex. Complexity inevitably leads to conflict. Lawyers help to manage conflict and to solve problems. They are the gatekeepers of the justice system. To do their job well, they must understand the subtleties of the rules that govern conduct, the climate in which those rules exist and the process by which rules are enforced.

The Center provides a forum for the continuing education of lawyers. Some programs focus on the new practitioner and are designed to introduce a lawyer to a new field of law. Others are more sophisticated, giving experienced practitioners and specialists an opportunity to explore developments in the law. The Center's annual Oil and Gas Law Conference is the oldest continuing legal education program in the United States.

Serving Law Enforcement Officials
Law enforcement officials, are, of course, critical players in the justice system. In a nation dedicated to the rule of law, it is often the decisions of individual officers that determine the quality of justice.

The Center’s Institute for Law Enforcement Administration does not teach officers how to shoot or how to drive. Instead, it teaches how to manage and how to lead, and it provides a forum in which law enforcement officials can grapple with the unusually difficult questions that confront those charged with maintaining order.

The Institute explores difficult management and ethical questions that must be answered if we are to set a standard of excellence in the law enforcement community. It focuses on teaching methods and principles that have been successful in the private business sector, and it challenges law enforcement officials to incorporate those successes in their own departments.